Bump for a little bit of help. My step-dad has told me that the most simple of the Linux distro's out there for me is Puppy. I have the latest version downloaded and I think I put the ISO file on a CDRW (if not, I'll do it again just to be sure).

This is what I want to do:

I want to leave Windows where it's at. However, as I've recently discovered, support for W2K has just puked all over itself (Zotob virus information on Yahoo! somewhere, I'm trying to find it again). I want to be able to use Puppy as a dual boot system, kinda like have a menu pop up that says: "Boot in Windows / Boot in Linux" and then go from there.

I want to start transferring most everything over into Linux, but I need to keep Windows because of a program that I currently use that doesn't support Linux in any way.

I went to the Boot Options (hit delete to enter setup) and this is what I have:

Would I switch it to 3 as my primary boot source as I do this? I'd ask my step-dad... but he's presently unaccessable (it's personal), so here is the only place I can turn. I'd RTFM, but at times... it seems to be written for those who are more technically sound than I am.

1. Go to the download page on the main Puppy site and scroll down to the section that says 'Check download integrity' and follow the instructions.

2. When you burn the CD ensure that you burn it as an image and not a straight copy to CD.

3. The BIOS appears to have the CD as the second boot option so leave things as they are.
The reason for this is that reading your boot options it shows that the floppy is the first option, so if there is no bootable floppy in this device BIOS will check the next option which is the CDROM and if there is no bootable CD in that device it will go to the next option which is your hard drive and if it finds a bootable sector it will initiate the bootup sequence which is what it does at present, booting you into Windows.

4. Boot your machine and Insert the CD in the CDROM and boot to Puppy. If all is well you will see the splashscreen with the options so depending on what filesystem you are using for Windows you can either write to the hard disk or just run from the CD.

You will have to make some decisions on how you wish to use Puppy, there are a few choices but as you are only concerned with using your hard drive at the moment don't worry about the other choices.

If you wish to install Puppy to your hard drive go to the install wizard in Puppy, Start/Setup/Install Puppy hard drive and read the instructions.

If you choose to just have a file on your hard drive that saves Puppy's settings and data you can do this in two ways.

If you are using the NT filesystem, which is the native filesystem for Windows NT4, 2000 and XP, you will need to download a file named pup001.zip from http://mymirrors.homelinux.org/puppy/ and unzip it in Windows in C: drive.

The second method applies if you have a fat32 filesystem which is the native filesystem for Windows 95b, c, 98 and ME.
This is simple, just take the default boot setup which creates a pup001 file on your hard drive.

What happens then is that when Puppy boots it looks for a pup001 file and when it finds it uses it to store data on.

The first thing is to get Puppy booted from the CD so try that first and if you get messages telling you that Puppy cannot save data to the hard drive just ignore them and continue with the bootup.

If you have any problems just come back to the forum and do a search as most problems have been covered, if you can't find an answer just post a query, take a number and we will get to you as soon as possible.

Ian: Thanks for your help. I printed out your post and I have everything pretty much set, ready to go. I sent an email to Hauppauge because they do support Linux (RedHat, SuSe) and I wanted to see if they're stuff supports Puppy as well. If so, I'm thinking about upgrading my TVTuner / Capture card because they've got a damn fine product.

....I sent an email to Hauppauge because they do support Linux (RedHat, SuSe) and I wanted to see if they're stuff supports Puppy as well. If so, I'm thinking about upgrading my TVTuner / Capture card because they've got a damn fine product....

Let us know if you get it to work. I have a Hauppauge PVR-350 I'd love to be able to use in Puppy. You might consider using Puppy 1.0.5a2. It allows for more tinkering with apps, such as compiling and so forth.

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